Pinching Pennies and Squeezing Your Eyes and Ears Shut

See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil...Because, yes indeed, from the perspective of the Port Angeles City Council, it's better to be deaf, dumb and blind as you go about the business of "leading" the town.



 

Case in point: The City Council are congratulating themselves (in a 6-0 fashion, with Doughy Dan Gase M.I.A.) and praising staff for "pinching pennies" to get through the honest to goodness budget crisis caused by the (former) Nippon mill being ("temporarily") shut down.

In response to the sale and retooling of the former Nippon paper mill, City officials are pinching pennies to balance the books in 2018. The Port Angeles City Council voted 6-0 Tuesday to approve a budget amendment that reflects $373,500 in one-time savings that staff identified to offset the loss of utility tax revenue from the City's largest power customer.

"If it were not for the wonderful work of our staff," said doddering Mayor Downie, "we'd be in a big hole."

Where to begin?

First, this is, as usual, the City lurching from one crisis to another, with no thought to the underlying issues. It's a band-aid approach to budgeting. Even when Nippon was operational, the utility taxes were never a sure thing, because they would lower or halt production at times, severely crimping the City's tax income. I remember Max Mania advocating for crafting a budget that simply didn't include or depend on Nippon's tax revenue, as a way to truly go lean, and to be able to ride out the fluctuations in tax revenue better. That way, any Nippon utility income would have been a happy bonus.

But, of course, the City will never, ever admit that the mill might not be fully functional, or, god forbid, might even close for good. So they keep on leaning on it financially, even though it's about as dependable as a rubber crutch. I'm sure City staff would say that a rubber crutch is better than no crutch at all. In any case, they keep tripping themselves up.

And do notice how staff is always - and I do mean always - able to identify hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings when these predictable crises occur. Now, you'd think and hope that they would always be alert to keeping costs down, and thus lessening the financial burden on their tax and rate payers. But no, they always - and I do mean always - have plenty of fat built into the system.



In other words, City staff game the system, then manipulate and lead their so-called leaders on the City Council to the - gosh! - very conclusion they want. Then said City Council, having convinced themselves of their intelligent management, close the circle of jerks by praising staff for their "wonderful work."

It's pathetic.

But do you think they really think about the potential consequences of this:

City Manager Dan McKeen, who was also absent from Tuesday's meeting, said retooling of the mill will cost the City about $315,5000 in revenue this year, and another $440,000 in 2018. When operational, the mill consumes nearly half of the electricity used in the entire city, providing tax revenue for services such as public safety, parks and streets.

The City's whole position is "things will be fine once the mill comes back." But what if? What if it simply never opens again? What if it opens at a significantly reduced level? What if they decide to use their cogen facilities to power themselves? What if any or all of that causes both the budget for essential services to be drastically cut, while simultaneously raising rates for the City's other utility customers?

There are so many ways this could go wrong. The signs (literally!) are already there that McKinley isn't exactly deeply committed to Port Angeles. Budgeting based on hopes and past glories is a surefire recipe for disaster. But the idiotic members of the Port Angeles City Council refuse to even consider anything other than a staff-induced fantasy. So they'll just keep pretending to "pinch pennies" while at the same time squeezing their eyes and ears shut tight, lest any reality try to force its way into their cold, closed minds.